


The Beginnings of Recovery

by QueenVeeples (CherubHope)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Post-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 10:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15661779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CherubHope/pseuds/QueenVeeples
Summary: The trip back to Earth, back to home, is long. Keith should take it to catch up on sleep. Sleep is evasive, though, but his nightmares, oh his nightmares are not.





	The Beginnings of Recovery

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after season 6 premiered but before season 7. I guess it could still theoretically fit in the canon of the show, though. I wrote this in probably 1-2 goes and I didn't really go back to edit it. But still! I hope everyone who reads it enjoys it.

After spending two years out of relative danger with his mother and the wolf that would become his companion and being thrust mercilessly back into the throes of the threat of Lotor and almost losing Shiro, Keith feels he should find the quiet in the settling dust after their final battle comforting, and if not at least welcome, but he doesn’t. Sleep doesn’t come easy in the first few days into their long journey home. In his mind, Keith tells himself that he’s safe, that they’re all safe, that _Shiro_ is safe and he should take this time to relax and enjoy the relative peace while he can. But his body hums at a constant light tension and even when he does manage to sleep, Keith sees Shiro’s face, twisted and snarling or sees his glowing astral body fading beyond his reach, leaving him only with the echoes of _“I died, Keith.”_ It keeps Keith up, it keeps him from ease, so he finds some respite in the cockpit of the Black Lion.

Keith squints at the readings, the graphs and scans the Black Lion is showing him of their current travel. The numbers mean nothing to him at the moment, just a jumble of squiggles he tries to focus on and draw meaning. When that fails, Keith turns his eyes space ward instead and admires the stars and the suggestive curve of a green planet further out in the distance. This is easier, getting lost in the random pattern of pinpricks of light, so Keith settles back in the chair and just watches.

So caught up in his reverie of the stars, of trying to connect them together in his mind to make shapes and figures, he doesn’t notice when Shiro enters the cockpit until he feels a hand on his shoulder. Keith’s breath hitches and he swivels, fists drawn up in front of his face. Shiro stumbles back a step or two before regaining his balance - enough time for Keith to recognize it’s just Shiro and that he really, really needs a good night’s sleep if he’s this on edge.

“Sorry,” Keith lowers his fists and relaxes them on his lap. “You surprised me.”

“Hey, I probably shouldn’t have snuck up on you like that,” Shiro offers a small smile that quickly flickers back into a frown of concern. “You looked like you were really out of it, Keith. Are you okay?”

Keith holds Shiro’s questioning stare for just a moment before he looks back to his lap. His hands flex and clench, then relax again as he considers. “I’ve been better.”

“You and me both, buddy,” Keith looks at Shiro again, who’d shuffled closer to a wall and settled into a relaxed sitting position. Shiro looks so tired with the deep purple shadows, like dark bruises, under his eyes but his expression is open. “Why don’t we talk about it?”

Shiro pats the floor to the left of him twice. Keith looks to the spot, then back to Shiro’s face, and nods. He joins him there, stretches out his legs and lets his head fall back against the cool metal and stares upwards at the ceiling. Neither of them say anything for a few minutes, but Keith knows that Shiro is waiting, letting him gather his thoughts. The silence is patient, unrushed, and finally, Keith speaks.

“I never thought I’d ever miss the early days of the Garrison,” Keith mutters. “Even with you there helping me through it, supporting me every step of the way, that place was still a total pain.”

Shiro chuckles at that. “You never did get along well with any of your teachers. Or classmates.”

“I got along with you,” Keith turns his head to Shiro, a smile touching his lips. “But you were always different than everyone else.”

Keith draws in a deep breath. He’s stalling, he knows that. Shiro probably knows that. At no point does it ever feel like Shiro is forcing him to open up faster than he’s willing or able, but it still twists sharp in Keith’s gut. He hates that it takes him so much longer to just say what he needs to say, even just to reach out to the one person he knows has always been there at his side. Keith inches his hand towards Shiro’s, grasps the strong, scarred fingers and grips them. With a firm squeeze from Shiro, Keith stares hard into Shiro’s eyes, determined not to drop his gaze. Shiro’s always been open with him. Keith owes him the same respect.

“Do you remember our fight, Shiro?” Keith’s throat feels dry. He doesn’t let Shiro answer before he continues. “Do you know what part of our fight scared me the most? It wasn’t the way you looked at me, it wasn’t what you said. All I could do was plead with you, beg you because I thought, if I could just reach through to you, everything would be okay. But I saw you - felt you slipping away from me. I was afraid I couldn’t save you.”

His throat constricts, like his body is fighting the words spilling out of his mouth. He pushes forward through the growing anxiety gripping him. “I see that fight in my dreams, and there it’s like you’re always just barely out of my reach. I hear you telling me that you died and it’s like my entire being just bottoms out and plummets, again and again and again until I wake up and need to just be as far away from that as possible.”

There’s nothing left Keith wants to add. His body sags down, physically and emotionally spent. His eyes burn, his muscle aches and he wonders how in the hell he’s supposed to come back from all of this when it seems so impossible. Shiro’s hand leaves his and Keith feels his fingertips ghosting across his back before settling across his shoulders. With a gentle tug, Shiro pulls Keith in close to his chest, so warm, so broad, so real. Keith lets his forehead fall against Shiro’s shoulder and relents into his one-armed embrace. Some of the tension in his back and shoulders seeps out slowly, down his arms and out of his fingertips and Keith squeezes his eyes closed. 

Shiro rubs firm, soothing circles into the muscles of his back, alternating big and small circles. He continues that, bringing Keith down from the growing panic he felt himself mounting with the admission of his nightmares until it’s just simmering below the surface of his mind. Eventually, Keith brings up his arms around Shiro too and feels the solidness of him just beneath his hands, and it ebbs away the last of his tension until Keith feels he might be at something that could almost be peaceful.

“I’m still trying to run away from my problems, even now,” Keith mutters, words beginning to sound slurred with sleepiness even to his own ears. “I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“You don’t have to face your problems alone, Keith,” Shiro finally intones. “It’ll take time for you to heal, but I’ll be here with you the entire way.”

Keith smiles to himself, hidden against Shiro’s chest. Hearing Shiro remind of him that lights something warm in the pit of his chest and he knows deep within that somehow, some way that Shiro will be right. Still, something nags at him. Not about himself, at least not right now, but about Shiro. Keith knows he’s only seconds away from slipping into sleep, but there’s something that’s demanding to be said before the moment is gone.

“And I’ll be here with you, Shiro,” he mumbles. Keith squeezes Shiro’s arm. “My problems, your problems. We’ll work through them all together.”

Keith hears Shiro’s breath hitch and then the soft, almost relieved sounding sigh of “Thank you, Keith,” before he feels the weight of Shiro’s head settle against his as he passes into a dreamless sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if this wasn't explicitly extremely romantic. :) I do ship Shiro/Keith together but in my personal head canon, they only get together post series. I have an idea for how that might go and at least opened a Google Doc to get that started.


End file.
